ABC(WASHINGTON) — Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — who has prosecuted high-profile cases taking on terrorists, mobsters, drug dealers and political corruption — is representing former FBI Director James Comey.
Fitzgerald has been “part of Mr. Comey’s legal team since May 2017,” Fitzgerald said in a statement to ABC News.
President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director on May 9, 2017.
Fitzgerald and Comey are longtime friends and both worked together in the 1990s as federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Appointed by George W. Bush to be U.S. attorney in Chicago in 2001, Fitzgerald became the longest-serving U.S. attorney in the history of that district.
In 2003, then-Deputy Attorney General Comey tapped Fitzgerald to investigate the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. That investigation led to the prosecution and conviction of Lewis “Scooter” Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements.
After spending more than 10 years as a convicted liar in a leak investigation, Libby was granted a full pardon by President Trump on April 13. That same day, Trump tweeted that “Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR….He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted.”
As a federal prosecutor in New York, Fitzgerald took on mobsters such as John Gambino and served as lead attorney in United States v. Usama bin Laden, et al., in which multiple defendants were convicted for their roles in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
He also worked on the World Trade Center bombing prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. As U.S. attorney, he took down Illinois Govs. George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges.
More recently, in private practice, he was retained by Michigan State University in the wake of sexual abuse allegations involving Dr. Larry Nassar to help the university conduct an internal review while facilitating cooperation with law enforcement agencies investigating the matter.
Fitzgerald is a partner at the powerhouse law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom., where he has practiced law since leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2012.
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